John Heard by Joan Micklin Silver

Between the Lines (1977) and Chilly Scenes of Winter (1982) are on Tubi and YouTube

Before John Heard was Kevin’s dad in Home Alone or Cutter in Cutter’s Way or the bartender who lends Paul his apartment keys in After Hours, he was Joan Micklin Silver’s muse in two successive movies about a guy who can’t seem to quite get the girl: Between the Lines (1977) and Chilly Scenes of Winter (1982). Blond and goofy, like a pudgier and kinder-eyed James Spader, he’s simply too nice. And the hardened babes of the late 1970s are suspicious of nice.

I like nice boys, personally, and recommend watching Chilly Scenes of Winter first. Set in snowy Salt Lake City, it’s based on an Ann Beattie novel that I haven’t read. It bombed at the box office and was re-released with a sadder ending, and it’s this more depressing cut (confusingly mislabeled) that’s available to watch on YouTube. 

Chilly Scenes is a movie about a desperate crush. Isn’t that enough of a selling point? It’s also a movie that suspects women enjoy being hit on by random strangers a little more than we’d generally have you believe. No comment, but Heard’s Charles, the hopeful hero of Chilly Scenes of Winter, really is the cute kind of creep. The I-guess-I’ll-give-him-a-chance sort. He has nothing much to offer Laura (Mary Beth Hurt), a co-worker he becomes obsessed with on sight, despite the fact she’s married. But when Laura leaves the door of romantic opportunity just slightly ajar, Charles sticks his foot in and keeps it there for an entire movie, even as Laura comes almost immediately to her senses and tries to lock up her house again. Charles’s foot is funny and smart, and it sucks to see it get covered in nasty door splinters. But you never find yourself hating Laura, even as you wish she would be more easily won over by her intense but sweet suitor. That’s probably the influence of a woman director, and I’m probably being a little simplistic.

The title, which Micklin Silver fought the studio to keep from Beattie’s novel, is apt. These are freezing cold vignettes. A heartbroken man padding around in heavy snow. Driving on black ice. Yearning for warmer rooms. Charles’ borderline stalking should be relatable to anyone who is honest with themselves, even in warmer climates. I’ve certainly walked by the houses of people I’ve had crushes on, or people I was dating who barely cared if I lived or died. People have simped for me, too — made me playlists that I was too embarrassed to listen to, talked excitedly about futures I could barely even fantasize about. Sometimes you’re lonely enough to string someone along, or you don’t have the strength to extract yourself from the flattery. And there are scarier scenarios where saying “no” doesn’t feel like a viable option. 

Mary Beth Hurt went on to marry Paul Schrader, who she met around the time Chilly Scenes was filmed, according to this great New York magazine interview. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years back and Schrader now lives with her in the upscale nursing home where she undergoes memory care. He regularly hosts screenings of this movie, because his wife is at her best and most charming in it. The most herself, as he wants to recall her. True love is often lopsided! It’s dog and owner, child and parent. It’s obviously heaven when two people simp for each other equally. That’s not what happens in this particular movie, but I’m devoted anyway.

Between the Lines is much more colorful and cosmopolitan than Chilly Scenes, even if its events do take place in the much-maligned city of Boston. And the ending is a little happier, which is why I suggest watching it as a chaser. Heard leads an ensemble cast as Harry, the scrappy star reporter at an alt weekly facing a depressing corporate buy-out. The Boston underground is getting dug up and everyone’s talking about moving to New York. Harry’s in love with the paper’s photographer Abbie, played by Lindsay Crouse (wife to David Mamet, mother to Shoshanna from Girls) and her pixie cut. She isn’t so sure about him. Meanwhile, Jeff Goldblum steals scenes as a confusingly charismatic loser.

The fate of the movie’s fictional Back Bay Mainline and its staffers will be enough to interest and/or re-traumatize journalists of the 2020s who are facing the same essential problems decades later, but you don’t have to watch Between the Lines as a media movie. I prefer to think of it as a joyful om in Micklin Silver’s career-long meditation on the nice guy. He’s definitely more hip than Sam the pickle seller in Crossing Delancey, but Harry is just as dorkily die-hard romantic. And yes, the niceness is to his detriment. It makes Abbie nervous; she can’t take him seriously. His fellow reporter Laura (Gwen Welles) takes advantage of said niceness by sleeping with him to make her crueler and better-looking brunette boyfriend Michael (played by a young Stephen Collins, the now-disgraced dad from 7th Heaven) jealous.

The niceness didn’t help Heard’s career, either — after making these two movies he entered the ‘80s as a lovable secondary character rather than as a leading man, and (really unfortunately, in my opinion) stayed that way. 

Chilly Scenes of Winter is on YOUTUBE

Between the Lines is on TUBI